waterer's

merry Christmas all ........ i think i got the feeder under control now the water is next. i have your average rubber bowl for water and it gets tipped over now and then. what other water system is out there? how do the water nipples work and what kind of container is used with them?

I use horizontal nipples, a 10 or 15 gallon tote, and a stock tank deicer that can be safely used in a plastic container for winter. It only needs filled every week or so. For summer I use a bucket with verticle nipples. The water is changed daily because algae grows so fast when it's warm.

As far as which is best I can't tell you, the fount is all I have used. Even though mine is raised on a block, those scratchin' dirt flingin' chickens can really make a mess, so it needs to be cleaned very regularly

I use two methods to keep a rubber bowl from tipping. In this one I elevate a piece of plywood and cut a hole in it for the bowl to sit in. This one is in a wire-floored brooder so it’s a bit different but normally I put a 2x2 on the edge and make the plywood fairly large so when I set it on bedding or in the run, it’s protected from them scratching that much stuff in. They still poop in it so you still have to clean it out but you should dump it regularly anyway to keep mosquitoes from breeding.

This doesn’t show it but I keep a large rock in the bowl when it’s up like this to keep them from tipping when the water level gets low. I find it tips when they perch on the edge. It was 4 degrees above zero when I took this so the rock was frozen in ice and could not go back in.

I’ve also used this for this type of waterer in a brooder. I shaped a stiff wire to fit over the plastic jar and hung that from above to keep the jar from tipping over. I put screws in around the base to keep the chicks from pushing that base over so it will stay level.

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

"If you make every game a life-and-death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot." — former North Carolina coach Dean Smith

I used a small fount when they were chicks, then switched to vertical nipples in a 5 gallon bucket. Now, in preparation for winter, I am using horizontal nipples in on a 5 gallon bucket with a small thermostatic heater. With 8 chickens, I refill the water every 2 weeks. Couldn't be easier.... Except maybe if I set up an automatic fill! Unlikely to happen though as I don't think I want to dig a trench to run water line.